Conventional methods for patching potholes, such as temporary repair of potholes, typically involve excessive time and labor to perform. The American Automobile Association (AAA) presented a study in 2016 that explained how American drivers spend on average $3 billion annually on damage caused by potholes, confirming that potholes pose a significant problem even in a developed country.
Pothole formation is typically more prevalent in colder months and in colder climates due to the freeze-thaw cycle. This cycle occurs when the weather fluctuates from below-freezing temperatures to relatively warmer temperatures. When water from precipitation permeates into an asphalt or concrete road, the water may be soaked up by a mixture of gravel and soil disposed beneath the road. Once the ambient temperature falls below the freezing point, the water that is absorbed by the gravel and soil under the road freezes and expands, which results in weakened pavement. A combination of recurring freeze-thaw cycles and applied forces from traffic to a road typically creates potholes. Similar pothole creation may also occur in areas such as parking lots, factory surfaces, and other surfaces affected by the freeze-thaw cycle and applied forces (e.g., by vehicles). For example, relatively heavy vehicles such as forklifts operating on a factory floor may cause impacts that lead to pothole creation in areas such as loading docks. Potholes therefore pose a widespread problem to public and private infrastructure.
The most widely used conventional method to patch potholes is the use of hot-mix asphalt and cold-mix asphalt. However, during cold months and/or cold climates (e.g., from November to March in many U.S. states), temperatures remain too cold to obtain and use hot-mix asphalt (e.g., hot-mix asphalt plants often shut down during cold periods because their customers are unable to use the hot-mix asphalt at cold temperatures). This typically forces municipalities and other infrastructure owners to temporarily patch potholes using cold-mix asphalt, also known as “cold patch,” during the colder months when potholes are more prevalent. Cold-mix asphalt is different from hot-mix asphalt due to the additives used to make this type of asphalt, which make cold-mix asphalt usable at colder temperatures.
Cold-mix asphalt involves excessive time for application by workers, and typically involves a high risk of failure in cold and wet conditions, which makes it a flawed solution for quickly patching surfaces such as paved surfaces. For example, cold-patching typically involves a burdensome process in which 2-4 crew members sweep out debris within a pothole, obtain and pour cold-mix asphalt into the pothole, and compact (e.g., tamp) the cold-mix asphalt to set the material into potholes. The process of applying cold-mix asphalt involves up to 20 minutes or more per pothole depending on conditions, which is a significant amount of time, labor, and cost for municipalities and other infrastructure owners. For example, major cities may experience thousands or even hundreds of thousands of potholes formed during a single winter (e.g., over a 3-5 month period).
Almost all municipalities responsible for patching potholes do not have enough employees to patch all potholes in a timely manner due to the number of potholes and other obligations of municipalities (e.g., street cleaning and snow removal). Additionally, cold weather and wet conditions put pothole patches using cold-mix asphalt at high risk of failure because these conditions prevent the cold-mix asphalt from properly adhering to the pavement. Municipalities may accordingly repair the same pothole multiple times because of cold-mix asphalt failure, resulting in a waste of time and money.
U.S. patent publication number US 2015/0016885 provides another approach to filling potholes, which involves placing non-Newtonian fluids such as a corn starch mixture in a tied bag. This approach is limited by the non-Newtonian behavior of the filled bags, as well as the configuration and properties of the bags themselves, which may not provide a desired effect when vehicles drive over the bags. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an efficient and effective technique for quickly repairing potholes to provide a safe surface for vehicular traffic.
The exemplary disclosed system, apparatus, and method of the present disclosure is directed to overcoming one or more of the shortcomings set forth above and/or other deficiencies in existing technology.